The new Ellis Hotel on Peachtree held its grand opening Wednesday night before a room full of guests including Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders and interim Atlanta Fire Chief Harold Miller.

"Many of us have ridden by the this block for 30 years... and it proves if you wait long enough, great things happen," says Franklin.

Co-owner Susan Griffin says the outside of the building looks as it did when the Winecoff first opened in 1913 including the second floor open-air terrace which had disappeared after the fire.

Although the "footprint" of the hotel remains the same with its H-shaped corridors, the layout of the floors was modified scaling down the original 15 rooms per floor to ten.

Griffin says while they have a soft spot for the history of the building and all the lives lost, she says it's definitely a new hotel.

"We want our focus to be about what this building is here now and what a bright, brilliant future it has," she tells WSB's Sandra Parrish.

Among those on hand for the grand opening was Janet Cox whose mother Dorothy Mowen Cox survived a seven-story fall as a teenager. Unfortunately she didn't live long enough to see the hotel's rebirth.

"I think she would have absolutely loved it and it would have been cathartic for her," says Cox.